SMU Wesley Foundation

Love God × Love People × Love SMU

Outreach × Community × Discipleship × WorSHIP

Who

SMU Wesley Foundation is a United Methodist campus ministry at SMU.

Our mission is to “transform students who transform the world through Jesus Christ.” When college students engage with SMU Wesley our hope is that they will grow in faith through bible studies, small groups, worship experiences, outreach missions, and authentic community to have passion and devotion to follow as a disciple of Jesus and the abundant life He offers.

The SMU Wesley Foundation is a campus ministry that is open to any college age person, not just Methodists. We hope that in time all who are a part of SMU Wesley will desire to follow Jesus Christ and be a part of God’s kingdom building on earth.

Join us as we love God, love people, love SMU, by following Jesus through community building, outreaching missions, growing in discipleship, and worship.

As a Methodist ministry on a Methodist campus we work closely with other Methodist ministries and organizations to continue to reach people in the name of Jesus.

Merry Crêpemas! A Crêpe Night Study Break.
Join us for our Christmas Crêpe night at the SMU Wesley House this Wednesday, December 7th. From 8-9:30 enjoy free crêpes, coffee, and community with SMU Wesley and HPUMC College. 3220 Daniel Ave. Behind Fondren Science.

The Christmas Well is tonight. 8pm in Cox Chapel. Get your Christmas on.

What a way to end the semester of bible study! Hope to see you all at the Christmas Well tomorrow night🎄

Bible Study is tonight. 8pm. Last one of the semester. Christmas sweaters are welcome. Wear 'em if you got 'em.

This is just a small sampling of all the amazing food here tonight for our thanksgiving dinner and stop hunger now event. 6:45 at @hpumcdallas. @smuwesley @stophungernow @smudallas 3300 Mockingbird Lane.

Let us fill your plate so you can fill someone else's!! Tonight in the Great Hall at HPUMC, Wesley is hosting a thanksgiving dinner while also teaming up with Stop Hunger Now to pack bags of food for people who need it!! Come come come! 🦃

One Lunch. Lunch served every Thursday for $1. Thursdays at Wesley House. 3220 Daniel Avenue– behind Fondren Science Building

Outreach. SMU Wesley works with Highland Park UMC and other methodist organizations to serve locally in the DFW area in a variety of ministries for Missions and Outreach.

Community. SMU Wesley is a thriving community. We eat together, we laugh together, we grow together, and we simply share life together! To find our more about community life at SMU Wesley please follow our social media.

Discipleship. The first followers of Jesus Christ were known has his disciples. SMU Wesley actively hopes, prays, and works to help students continue to grow as disciples who follow Jesus. We do this through our times of bible study, small groups, retreats, one on one meetings, and more.

Leadership. SMU Wesley values partnering with student leaders to equip them to understand their own gifts and talents and how they can be used in the world and in the Church. If you want to grow deeper in your faith and serve SMU Wesley and the campus, then consider being a part of the SMU Wesley leadership team. To find out more about joining Wesley leadership please email Andrew at awbeard@smu.edu. The 2016-2017 Wesley Leadership Application is available now. Please click here to access it and return it to Andrew Beard.

Give

We are so grateful that you are considering supporting SMU Wesley. The easiest way to donate is online through our account with Clover Donations. This is a safe and secure means of giving that many churches and non-profits are now using. For your peace of mind or for more information on Clover please go to this link.

All financial gifts given to SMU Wesley Foundation are tax deductible and if you should choose to give online a tax exempt receipt will be sent to you immediately after you make a payment.

-Wesley 100-$100. John Wesley knew that 100 people could change the world. I want to invite you, all of you, to join the efforts of the Wesley 100. With 100 people giving $100 annually we can transform the lives of the students at and around SMU. Please consider making the simple donation of $100 and sharing with friends, family, and alum of SMU and SMU Wesley. Together we can work to help students experience transformation and then go and transform the world through the power of Jesus Christ.

Contact

Subscribe

For more information about SMU Wesley or to join our mailing list, please fill out the information below or click the link below to sign up to receive news and updates.

Thanks for signing up!

Sign up to stay up to date about all things SMU Wesley.

Sign up to get news and updates about all that SMU Wesley is doing. Please select which email list applies to you.

Email Address

First Name

Last Name

Phone Number

Select a country

Street

City

Select a state/province

Zip Code

Email Lists

Alumni

Class of 2016

Class of 2017

Class of 2018

Class of 2019

Class of 2020

General Interest

Grad/ Unidentified Year

Parents

Young Alumni

By submitting this form, you are granting: SMU Wesley, 3220 Daniel Ave, Dallas, Texas, 75275, United States, http://www.smuwesley.com permission to email you. You may unsubscribe via the link found at the bottom of every email. (See our Email Privacy Policy for details.) Emails are serviced by Constant Contact.

Details

The SMU Wesley Foundation is an extension ministry of the United Methodist Church in the Metro District of the North Texas Conference. Since it is not a local church, but an extension ministry, it works closely with other United Methodist congregations and ministries. Located on the north side of SMU's campus, SMU Wesley works closely with the SMU Chaplain's office, and Highland Park United Methodist Church on the south side of campus. SMU Wesley as it is known today began in the early 1990’s and God has used this ministry in a mighty way on the SMU campus. Under the direction of Greg Ligon, Creighton Alexander, Joy Roberson, Andy Roberts, and Andrew Beard many SMU students have been brought to faith in Jesus Christ, hundreds of students have become more mature followers of Jesus Christ, and dozens of students have responded to the the call to full time ministry in the United Methodist Church and beyond.

WHAT WE BELIEVE

Beliefs we Share in Common with other Christians

With Christians of other communions we confess belief in the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This confession embraces the biblical witness to God’s activity in creation, encompasses God’s gracious self-involvement in the dramas of history, and anticipates the consummation of God’s reign.

The created order is designed for the well-being of all creatures and as the place of human dwelling in covenant with God. As sinful creatures, however, we have broken that covenant, become estranged from God, wounded ourselves and one another, and wreaked havoc throughout the natural order. We stand in need of redemption.

We hold in common with all Christians a faith in the mystery of salvation in and through Jesus Christ. At the heart of the gospel of salvation is God’s incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth. Scripture witnesses to the redeeming love of God in Jesus’ life and teachings, his atoning death, his resurrection, his sovereign presence in history, his triumph over the powers of evil and death, and his promised return. Because God truly loves us in spite of our willful sin, God judges us, summons us to repentance, pardons us, receives us by that grace given to us in Jesus Christ, and gives us hope of life eternal.

We share the Christian belief that God’s redemptive love is realized in human life by the activity of the Holy Spirit, both in personal experience and in the community of believers. This community is the church, which the Spirit has brought into existence for the healing of the nations.

Through faith in Jesus Christ we are forgiven, reconciled to God, and transformed as people of the new covenant.

“Life in the Spirit” involves diligent use of the means of grace such as praying, fasting, attending upon the sacraments, and inward searching in solitude. It also encompasses the communal life of the church in worship, mission, evangelism, service, and social witness.

We understand ourselves to be part of Christ’s universal church when by adoration, proclamation, and service we become conformed to Christ. We are initiated and incorporated into this community of faith by Baptism, receiving the promise of the Spirit that re-creates and transforms us. Through the regular celebration of Holy Communion, we participate in the risen presence of Jesus Christ and are thereby nourished for faithful discipleship.

We pray and work for the coming of God’s realm and reign to the world and rejoice in the promise of everlasting life that overcomes death and the forces of evil.

With other Christians we recognize that the reign of God is both a present and future reality. The church is called to be that place where the first signs of the reign of God are identified and acknowledged in the world. Wherever persons are being made new creatures in Christ, wherever the insights and resources of the gospel are brought to bear on the life of the world, God’s reign is already effective in its healing and renewing power.

We also look to the end time in which God’s work will be fulfilled. This prospect gives us hope in our present actions as individuals and as the Church. This expectation saves us from resignation and motivates our continuing witness and service.

With other Christians, we declare the essential oneness of the church in Christ Jesus. This rich heritage of shared Christian belief finds expression in our hymnody and liturgies. Our unity is affirmed in the historic creeds as we confess one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. It is also experienced in joint ventures of ministry and in various forms of ecumenical cooperation.

Nourished by common roots of this shared Christian heritage, the branches of Christ’s church have developed diverse traditions that enlarge our store of shared understandings. Our avowed ecumenical commitment as United Methodists is to gather our own doctrinal emphases into the larger Christian unity, there to be made more meaningful in a richer whole.

If we are to offer our best gifts to the common Christian treasury, we must make a deliberate effort as a church to strive for critical self-understanding. It is as Christians involved in ecumenical partnership that we embrace and examine our distinctive heritage.

We share with many Christian communions a recognition of the authority of Scripture in matters of faith, the confession that our justification as sinners is by grace through faith, and the sober realization that the church is in need of continual reformation and renewal.

We affirm the general ministry of all baptized Christians who share responsibility for building up the church and reaching out in mission and service to the world.

With other Christians, we declare the essential oneness of the church in Christ Jesus. This rich heritage of shared Christian belief finds expression in our hymnody and liturgies. Our unity is affirmed in the historic creeds as we confess one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. It is also experienced in joint ventures of ministry and in various forms of ecumenical cooperation.

Nourished by common roots of this shared Christian heritage, the branches of Christ’s church have developed diverse traditions that enlarge our store of shared understandings. Our avowed ecumenical commitment as United Methodists is to gather our own doctrinal emphases into the larger Christian unity, there to be made more meaningful in a richer whole.

If we are to offer our best gifts to the common Christian treasury, we must make a deliberate effort as a church to strive for critical self-understanding. It is as Christians involved in ecumenical partnership that we embrace and examine our distinctive heritage.

Distinctive Wesleyan Beliefs

Although Wesley shared with many other Christians a belief in grace, justification, assurance, and sanctification, he combined them in a powerful manner to create distinctive emphases for living the full Christian life. The Evangelical United Brethren tradition, particularly as expressed by Phillip William Otterbein from a Reformed background, gave similar distinctive emphases.

Grace pervades our understanding of Christian faith and life. By grace we mean the undeserved, unmerited, and loving action of God in human existence through the ever-present Holy Spirit. While the grace of God is undivided, it precedes salvation as “prevenient grace,” continues in “justifying grace,” and is brought to fruition in “sanctifying grace.”

We assert that God’s grace is manifest in all creation even though suffering, violence, and evil are everywhere present. The goodness of creation is fulfilled in human beings, who are called to covenant partnership with God. God has endowed us with dignity and freedom and has summoned us to responsibility for our lives and the life of the world.

In God’s self-revelation, Jesus Christ, we see the splendor of our true humanity. Even our sin, with its destructive consequences for all creation, does not alter God’s intention for us—holiness and happiness of heart. Nor does it diminish our accountability for the way we live.

Despite our brokenness, we remain creatures brought into being by a just and merciful God. The restoration of God’s image in our lives requires divine grace to renew our fallen nature.

Prevenient Grace—We acknowledge God’s prevenient grace, the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses. This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer of understanding concerning God’s will, and our “first slight transient conviction” of having sinned against God.

God’s grace also awakens in us an earnest longing for deliverance from sin and death and moves us toward repentance and faith.

Justification and Assurance—We believe God reaches out to the repentant believer in justifying grace with accepting and pardoning love. Wesleyan theology stresses that a decisive change in the human heart can and does occur under the prompting of grace and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In justification we are, through faith, forgiven our sin and restored to God’s favor. This righting of relationships by God through Christ calls forth our faith and trust as we experience regeneration, by which we are made new creatures in Christ. This process of justification and new birth is often referred to as conversion. Such a change may be sudden and dramatic, or gradual and cumulative. It marks a new beginning, yet it is part of an ongoing process. Christian experience as personal transformation always expresses itself as faith working by love.

Our Wesleyan theology also embraces the scriptural promise that we can expect to receive assurance of our present salvation as the Spirit “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

Sanctification and Perfection—We hold that the wonder of God’s acceptance and pardon does not end God’s saving work, which continues to nurture our growth in grace. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to increase in the knowledge and love of God and in love for our neighbor.

New birth is the first step in this process of sanctification. Sanctifying grace draws us toward the gift of Christian perfection, which Wesley described as a heart “habitually filled with the love of God and neighbor” and as “having the mind of Christ and walking as he walked.”

This gracious gift of God’s power and love, the hope and expectation of the faithful, is neither warranted by our efforts nor limited by our frailties.

Faith and Good Works—We see God’s grace and human activity working together in the relationship of faith and good works. God’s grace calls forth human response and discipline.

Faith is the only response essential for salvation. However, the General Rules remind us that salvation evidences itself in good works. For Wesley, even repentance should be accompanied by “fruits meet for repentance,” or works of piety and mercy.

Both faith and good works belong within an all-encompassing theology of grace, since they stem from God’s gracious love “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”

Mission and Service—We insist that personal salvation always involves Christian mission and service to the world. By joining heart and hand, we assert that personal religion, evangelical witness, and Christian social action are reciprocal and mutually reinforcing.

Scriptural holiness entails more than personal piety; love of God is always linked with love of neighbor, a passion for justice and renewal in the life of the world.

The General Rules represent one traditional expression of the intrinsic relationship between Christian life and thought as understood within the Wesleyan tradition. Theology is the servant of piety, which in turn is the ground of social conscience and the impetus for social action and global interaction, always in the empowering context of the reign of God.

Nurture and Mission of the Church—Finally, we emphasize the nurturing and serving function of Christian fellowship in the Church. The personal experience of faith is nourished by the worshiping community.

For Wesley there is no religion but social religion, no holiness but social holiness. The communal forms of faith in the Wesleyan tradition not only promote personal growth; they also equip and mobilize us for mission and service to the world.

The outreach of the church springs from the working of the Spirit. As United Methodists, we respond to that working through a connectional polity based upon mutual responsiveness and accountability. Connectional ties bind us together in faith and service in our global witness, enabling faith to become active in love and intensifying our desire for peace and justice in the world.